


Demolition.

by palegingerade



Category: The Young Ones (TV 1982)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, First Time, Firsts, Flashbacks, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Love, M/M, Masturbation, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Phone Sex, Reconciliation, Unrequited Love, Virginity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-07-15 04:17:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16055387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palegingerade/pseuds/palegingerade
Summary: The one where Rick and Vyvyan accidentally stumble upon something effective at relieving the stress of their exams - or so Rick thinks.Vyvyan is trying. Rick is also trying. But they get their wires tangled and crossed. All will be right in the end, in the meantime Rick overeacts and picks up the very wrong end of a very big stick.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was struggling with a couple of my other fics and which to update first so I thought I'd fight my writers block with a new one, and it worked! 
> 
> Part one of three coz it's pretty long already.
> 
> With phone sex, coz they wanted to.

Rick glares at the offending, silent telephone, perching himself on the edge of the sofa ready to pounce if it dares make a sound; waiting for Vyvyan was always such a chore. 

Now it's making Rick more antsy than ever and there's nothing to serve as a distraction tonight. He quickly checks the time and kicks at the gargantuan pile of study notes littered about the sitting room. Now that his exams were over, he couldn't even take his mind off this with those.

This blasted watch! The second hand is definitely moving backwards.

_tick-tock, tick-tock, tick TICK TICK.._

"Oh for Cliff's sake, JUST HURRY UP WILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!" He stands again and shrieks, losing what very little patience he has. Neil gives him a questioning eyebrow from where he's sat watching television morose, balancing on the rickety chair, and Rick can't help but flash him a seconds worth of a fake smile even if the hippy is starting to get on his nerves. Everything is. 

"I just get excited when the news comes on, that's all." He rushes to explain, "so bloody hurry up, news, for crying out loud! And that newsreader's a right bastard I hate him."

"Yeah me too. I think it's, like, really important to keep abreast of current affairs though, Rick. And, like, really mature of you. Go news!" 

He laughs childishly at Neil's unknowing use of the word _breast_ and it breaks the tedium, interrupting the apprehensive grind of his teeth. He'd almost forgotten Neil was here and he really wished he wasn't. Making stern eyes at him in the hope he'd get the message and scarper off to bed doesn't appear to be working, and Rick wishes, for once, he could be left alone - well, with the exception of Vyvyan, who he's still fuming about.

Coz it's getting late now. Too late. Certainly past their bed time, but Rick isn't going up or giving up yet. It'll be worth it in the end, he hopes. There's still time - still a chance, and waiting a few more minutes for Vyvyan couldn't hurt. It's not like he's got anything better to do.

 

~

 

The first time it happens it's completely an accident. 

It had just gone ten PM, two Thursdays ago, and after skipping dinner and drinking in the Kebab and Calculator since four that afternoon, Rick had finally had enough. 

He and Neil had left Mike and Vyvyan finishing their game of pool - celebrating the fact that all four of them had somehow managed to make it through an entire day of revision lectures. Rick had consumed way too much alcohol - three whole pints - and he really needed his bed, but he's still stood by the door - still waiting for Neil to get out of the bathroom when the surprisingly shrill blast of the telephone startles him.

"Neeeilll, telephooone!"

_No answer._

Strange.

Having to answer the phone himself is a task previously unheard of but the hippy had been ages in the bathroom already and Rick was beginning to wonder if he'd fallen asleep in there. 

He shouts again to no reply. The insistent ringing is jarring; his head is sore enough, so he stumbles blindly down the hall, trying to force his legs into what he thinks are his freshly washed pyjamas.

In his drunken haste, he doesn't realise it's Vyvyan's pyjamas he's fighting with until they're all over him.

Even stranger: it was a rarity for Vyvyan to do any laundry whatsoever, but since when did he start washing their clothes together?

The waistband of the bottoms nip in his much softer middle and the legs flap half-mast on his shins but he wears them anyway and races the stairs to the phone. He really hopes it isn't Jerzei again calling about the rent, coz thanks to Mike's thesis that you 'only live once' it wasn't their fault that every last penny had been squandered in the pub earlier. It'd been a very boozy, carefree afternoon and all four of them were feeling the effect. He picks up the receiver and panics:

"Hello Mr. Landlord sir, we're not home at the moment but if you'd like to leave your message and we'll have Neil get back to you shortly, erm, presently, okay? Thanksforunderstanding bye!"

"Rick?" 

"Oh hey you," he says, much softer and through his instantly dreamy grin. "Missing me already?" He'd recognise those dulcet tones anywhere and cradles the handset in the crook of his neck, proceeding to do up the buttons on his chest in completely the wrong order.

"No!" Vyvyan snaps a little too quickly: a lie. "What do you think you're playing at, answering the telephone? Where's Neil?"

"Still in the bloody bathroom!" He yells, giving up fastening the buttons and unravelling the phone cord like a stretched elastic band as he slumps against the vestibule door. "Think he's asleep on the lavatory." 

"Ha!" Snorts Vyvyan. "Got something for that. Second drawer in my room."

"I don't think your vast collection of rubber johnnies from that machine down the pub can help me now, Vyv, but I'm grateful for the offer. Why do you have so many anyway? Is there something I should know?"

"Yes. I buy them in the hope you'll stop being such a poof and let me shag you soon." Says Vyvyan, obviously. "You're a walking aphrodisiac when I'm drunk, I've told you, and Mike says it's better to be prepared, isn't it?"

"Erm, yeah. I guess it is." There's a mutually embarrassed silence and neither suddenly know how to fill it. Hearing directly what Vyvyan wanted to do to him is daunting and Rick's heart trips several beats with a nervous but prickling, tantalising excitement. Maybe he _had_ kept Vyvyan waiting long enough. He hadn't expected him to be this patient with him, or this blatant, but losing ones virginity was a serious matter, and although Rick wants it like crazy, he'd never admitted it out loud before.

"Anyway," Vyvyan smashes through the silence, thankfully letting him off the hook again, "condoms might not come in handy tonight but my collection of dynamite will. One of those small but deadly red ones in the keyhole should do it. That'll wake Neil, and take half the street with him. Problem solved. See, Rick, always thinking. I've always got your back."

"I don't actually want our house to explode though."

"Oh well pardon me for breathing! I shan't be so helpful next time. Anyway, I _was_ ringing to tell Neil to record Bastard Squad, but you'll do. Although you'll probably do it wrong and I'll end up with The Good Life."

"I do know how the video works, Vyvyan! I'm not an idiot."

"I'm sure you do! After some of the filth Mike found on that cassette. I told him those naked girls had nothing to do with the shooting of J.R but he insisted on watching it anyway. If the video gives you any jip then you might want to stick the odd stick of dynamite in that, too. It can be a right wanker at times." 

Rick knows Vyvyan is smiling, and joking, but that the next words he says are fiercely serious: 

"And, just for the record, if you ever use anything else from that drawer on Neil, then I'll kill you, 'kay?"

"I don't intend to," he grins helplessly into the mouthpiece. Rick _adores_ Vyvyan when he's jealous - which is pretty much always. "You know you're the only one I want."

"… I don't just mean I'll kill you, Rick. I mean I'll actually murder you. I'll quite literally murder you - both. With my bare hands. Before I bleach my eyeballs out and vomit up every one of my internal organs."

"Aw baby, I love you too."

"I think there's a few about to make an appearance now," Vyvyan yells through the phone. "Quick, Mike, get a bucket. My boyfriend’s being a girl!" 

And Rick hears him giggle. It had been a while since they'd done this together: laughed. And an even longer while since they'd discussed taking their relationship to the next level, or even attempted it by going to bed together at the same time thanks to this ridiculous and rather unrealistic revision schedule Rick had forced upon himself, and although he's a little hesitant to admit it, he wants Vyvyan so much!

"I think you should come home," he tells him, swaying against the wall, hoping it would hold him up and really hoping it was still considered sexy to drunkenly hiccup and burp your boyfriend’s name simultaneously. "Come home now and come to bed with me, gorgeous."

" _Gorgeous?_ Well that's the last time I'm spiking your shandy with tequila." Vyvyan laughs, his voice a little lower. "I can't."

"Yer you can - why can't you? Come home now and come to bed and let's do it."

" _It?_ "

"Yes - it! Let's finally have a night of torrid and disgustingly filthy, top-shelf sex!" Rick slurs, lisping the word _sex_ like he'd never lisped it before. 

"Top-shelf sex, eh? Can't say I'm not tempted, but  
I can't. We've got two more games and pints lined up. I'll be about an hour," 

Vyvyan is definitely smiling now, but then again, so is he. He pouts at the insensitive rejection but doesn't really mean it. 

"I'll beat Mike again, twice, and then I'm all yours, Rick. If you're still awake?"

He's almost asleep just listening. The softened slur of that voice is hypnotic and his head feels heavy and throbs. He could slide down the wall in a heap and nod off on the spot, but if there's a chance of a very drunk and horny Vyvyan athletically throwing him around the bedroom later, then he'd most definitely be up for that. "I'll be awake. And if I'm not then wake me, okay?" He bargains, "coz we haven't had a chance to, you know, for ages, and I really, really want you.. to wake me up."

"Then you've got yourself an extremely filthy, top-shelf deal. Oh, and one more thing,"

"Yeah?"

"Now that I've finally got you on the telephone, there's something I've been meaning to ask you for quite some time, as it goes."

"What's that?"

"What are you wearing?"

"Vyv!" Rick gasps, suddenly a lot more awake than he was.

"What? Mike can't hear you so you can say if you're naked. Oh please fuck tell me you're naked! I'll come home right now."

"Yes coz I wait outside the bathroom for Neil totally starkers every night, Vyv."

"You had better be fucking joking!"

"I'm wearing your pyjamas, actually." He defuses, holding the phone closer to his ear for a reaction.

"No you're not."

"I am. Honest. I thought they were mine." He confesses, smiling like a sick puppy at the warmth in Vyvyan's tone.

"Miss me that much, do you? Soppy bastard."

"You know you don't have to wash my things. I'm quite capable."

"You put your girly hat in the wash last time and dyed my lucky pants bright pink."

"You don't need your lucky pants anymore, Vyv. You're with me."

"Yeah, now they're unlucky pants."

"Oi!"

"Joking. So I won't wash your stuff if you don't want." Says Vyvyan. "Just remind me never to attempt an experiment to make flavoured lube again if you don't want me to make a mess. Bet you still taste like cherry brandy."

"Young man, I'll do no such thing." He frowns, still giggling, his cheeks flushing at the memory and at Vyvyan's rather seductive teasing. "And did you really feel the need to tell me that piece of information, Vyvyan? I miss you even more now." With the alcohol in his bloodstream killing off the rest of his inhibitions, he can't help but take it that one step further as always. "Well right now there's a certain part of you I miss, and I think I've waited long enough for it." And he hears Vyvyan quietly clear his throat and whisper,

"Fuck! You'd better be awake, so help you."

"Why's that, then?"

"You want me to tell you _now?_ "

"Yes I want you to tell me now." He whispers back - Vyvyan's pyjama bottoms feeling tighter still. "Tell me what you'd do to me if you were here right now?"

"Why?"

"Because I like it. I like hearing you say it."

"Rick, is this phone sex?"

"Yes I think so. Well, it could be."

"Not much in it for me, is there? I don't feel very sexy with my mother giving me daggers."

"Vyvyan, pleeease! Just try. I haven't seen you all week."

"You've been with me all day!"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah. You mean ever since I got you pissed and rammed my tongue down your throat, you've turned into a horny raging nympho, and as soon as I steal your virginity I'll probably need to get down on my knees to beg you for a night off."

"Uhuh," Rick sighs, slowly nodding, "yeah that. Carry on like that."

"Where was I?"

"You were telling me what you'd do to me if you were here now." He slowly repeats, blood pounding in his ears and other places.

"Oh yeah. You'd probably lose your bottle again and get scared, so I'd be on top of you so you can't run away." 

"W-where?"

"Right there on the floor."

"I wouldn't run away and I'm not scared. Not this time. Not anymore."

"So maybe I'll do it then."

Vyvyan isn't much of a talker - Rick knows this. Getting him to open up about feelings and stuff was like getting blood out of a shrivelled up stone at times. But this is good, Rick's head and heart both swim. This is _very_ promising. "And, um, then what would you do?"

"Put your hand in my pants."

"I will. Tell me more first."

"No, you. I mean now. Put your hand in my pyjamas now. Touch yourself for me."

"Seriously! Right here in the hall?"

"Very seriously right there in the hall."

"O-kay.." He covers the mouthpiece and crooks his head in the direction of the stairs to listen (still nothing) and slowly moves his hand into Vyvyan's pyjamas and down his underwear, wrapping it snugly around his shaft. "Mmhh. Okay. Now what?"

"Are you doing it?"

"Yeah I'm doing it."

"How do I know?"

"Because I am!" He gasps. "You'll just have to trust me and _please_ don't stop."

"Okay, you're begging? I believe you."

"You do?"

"Yeah. That's a dead giveaway. I love it when you beg. I almost wish I _was_ there."

"I wish you were here too." Sighs Rick with a quicker breath, "and I wish this was your hand," he moans, taking a much needed firmer, braver grip of himself. This is so naughty - so sexy that his mouth is running away with him and he's hanging on Vyvyan's every word.

" _Fuck!_ and I love the little noises you make. Does it feel good?"

"Starting to - yeah."

"Good. Do it harder then."

"H-how hard?"

"Hard. Like I touch you."

"Mmmh!" This moan comes out of nowhere and it's loud - his lips pressed to the receiver, knees trembling as he squeezes and strokes himself in his underwear. It isn't a bad substitute for Vyvyan's rougher, much stronger hand, but it's hardly the same and it had been too long.

"Harder."

"But.. Neil might hear me."

"Maybe if you close your eyes then and bite your lip and stop thinking about Neil when you're having a wank!"

"I'm not! I'm not thinking about Neil - not like that."

"Okay. Eyes closed?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

"Are you thinking about me?"

"Oh _God_ yes!"

"Good. That's good. Okay. See you later, then."

"But - but Vyvyan, wait!" The line instantly goes dead, humming in his ear, and he yells, "you utter bastard," and stares gobsmacked at the beeping receiver. He hangs up with a violent crash, tucks himself back in Vyvyan's pyjamas and marches to the kitchen to make a very large pot of very, very strong coffee - yet another unprecedented task: Neil had better be unconscious and hopefully dead on that toilet!

As his anger and desire fade, Rick focuses back on the present. He'd done something very wrong here. The coffee is so strong it makes him retch, he can't find the sugar bowl and the milk had turned sour so he settles in front of the video to do as he'd been asked. 

Of course, he doesn't have a clue how to work the video machine. Vyvyan had been right about that too, of course. _He_ was the expert. The brain-box. The gearbox. Tinkering with disobedient gadgets is what Vyvyan does best, but Rick gives it his best shot because he wants to try.

Being with Vyvyan frustrates him in every single way humanly possible, but it makes him want to try.

It's much later when he hears the slam of the front door and he's wrapped in the sheets of what is sometimes permitted to be his very own side of Vyvyan's small single bed, face-deep in a pillow that smells faintly of hair gel. He breathes in the scent as the room spins around.

"Oi, virgin, you're hogging all the duvet."

"M'sorry." He stirs. Vyvyan slips in next to him, naked, pressing cold lips to the top of arm.

"What's happened to my pyjamas?"

"They were too small. And I was thinking about you, and I was hot."

"Mmm, you're _very_ hot." Vyvyan purrs on the back of his neck, "Hope you haven't made a mess of 'em after that phone call." He teases with a rough grab of Rick's underpants. "Still want filthy, top-shelf sex?"

"Mmyeah."

"Okay but you're doing the first half, I'm too drunk to move. Come here and get on this."

"Yeahwill. Inminute." He groans. Vyvyan's erection prods his thigh and he turns to get free of the covers and attempts to roll him on his back. Vyvyan whines at this and falls heavily on him, his voice weak, sleepy, muffled in his chest. He's so inebriated that Rick can't understand what he says, yet his body feels immediately boneless and more than comfortable on his, so Rick folds him gently in the heat of his arms to warm him up, and then they both fall asleep.

The salacious phone call isn't mentioned the next day. 

Or the next.

Rick is starting to think he'd dreamed it, until the following Thursday evening. 

Mike suggests the pub again. Rick is now deep in the depths of exam terror, struggling to concentrate or get anything done and panicking like always. Neil declines the offer too and stays to revise in his room, and by the time Mike and Vyvyan are ready to leave, Rick had littered the whole of the kitchen table with textbooks.

"Are you seriously not coming!?" 

Vyvyan complains, bellowing in his ear, passing SPG - who had taken to curling up on Rick's shoulder pads of late - various loose bits of his note paper. Rick doesn't look up from the page he's manically scribbling on. "No." He tuts. "I have to finish this. You'll just have to buy your own beer for a change and make do without me."

"Ugh you're such a disgustingly girly swot!"

"I am not!"

"Yes you are."

"Well!" He tuts again. "It's important - maybe not to you, but I need at least a pass or my parents will hit the roof! And will you _please_ stop feeding my coursework to your ruddy hamster, Vyvyan! Go away and leave me alone!"

" _Our_ ruddy hamster," Vyvyan corrects, "but fine, I'll leave you alone. He prefers Neil's coursework anyway; it's always laced with hemp. There's more to life than exams, Rick. Don't get your poofy knickers in such a twist." 

Vyvyan bends to ruffle his hair, scruffing it into a shabby mess and kissing him wetly on the cheek, licking it until Rick tuts again. "Ew, Vyv!"

"Ha! See ya, loser. Call you later."

"What?!" He drops the pen he's holding, blushing furiously as he crawls under the table to retrieve it. So he hadn't imagined it, then. The phone call had really happened. And Vyvyan wanted it to happen again.

A couple of hours later, Vyvyan does call, but the pub is loud and chaotic. People are drunk in the background and singing obnoxiously drunken songs and Rick can hardly hear himself think. He hadn't managed half of what he'd wanted to get done and really wasn't in the mood to be remotely flirtatious with anyone - even if that someone was _finally_ Vyvyan.

"You're missing out, you girl." Vyvyan tells him over the roar of the crowd.

"I don't care! I just don't care! It's not fair!"

"Hey, you're a poet and you don't know it."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Don't. I'm only kidding - wait!"

"It's alright for you, isn't it." Says Rick. "You might not feel the need to do any revision whatsoever, Vyvyan, and you think that just coasting through life by the seat of your pants is acceptable, but you're clever! You're all clever! You're all going to do better than me and then you're all going to leave me and then I'll never get a job and I'll have to be a pauper and I won't have anywhere to live and I'll end up dead in a ditch somewhere, alone!"

"Alright. It's alright, Rick. Calm down. Read me what you've got so far."

They talk for a while. Vyvyan spends his spare change being unfairly nice to him and stupidly rational, helping him the best that he can, and by the time the beeps return in Rick's ear, he's feeling decidedly more soppy than sexy, but that's okay - it wasn't so different from last week: Vyvyan was still crazily unpredictable on the telephone, and Rick was once again rendered totally speechless by him.

 

~

 

Now it's Thursday again. Tonight Neil hasn't gone to bed early; his exams had finished too, and now they're both sat here like misshapen pieces of an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, Rick seething - fuming, because it's nearly midnight and Vyvyan still hasn't called.

He hadn't said he would, though, now that Rick thinks about it.

Vyvyan hadn't told either of them to record Bastard Squad tonight. He hadn't been home since he'd left for college that morning. 

Vyvyan hadn't even bothered to wake him when he was leaving, and watching his favourite programme without him wasn't the same.

Rick yawns and fakes a stretch, making a point of studying his watch again to be sure, drumming his fingertips impatiently against the armrest of the sofa. He's really angry now and Neil still doesn't say anything, the pig!

He's about to give up before he gives the hippy what for when he hears a familiar rattling of keys in the front door. And he's all ready to give Vyvyan a ruddy big piece of his mind when Mike appears in the silhouette of darkness alone. 

"Hi guys. Eleven fifty-nine and Mike enters the house, successfully victorious after a battle to the death in the billiard room."

"So Vyv let you win a game?" Neil pipes up. Mike forces a laugh and strides to hang up his coat.

"No. I didn't play with Vyv tonight, and he doesn't need to let me win, Neil. I taught that boy everything he knows."

"Yeah, like how to be a complete bastard!" Says Rick, giving Mike precisely three seconds to sit before interrogating him as to Vyvyan's whereabouts.

"He said to go home without him. He had something he needed to do, or something. Any tea in the pot?"

Rick sighs in defeat and leans to focus on the television, hiding his disappointment and predictably watering eyes with his hands. Just typical of Vyvyan to have something better to do when Rick is desperate to see him and getting more and more furious and upset by the minute! "No there isn't. Neil, make some tea."

"I was just about to go to bed, Rick."

"Go on, make some tea! Don't be so lazy! You've done absolutely bugger all all night!" He isn't in the mood for this: Neil's whining and Mike's pathetic excuses. All he wants - and all he's ever really wanted since the day he'd moved into this godforsaken shanty of a house, is Vyvyan. And the punk quite obviously couldn't care less.

He accepts Neil's unappetising peace offering and drinks it in silence, mulling over the situation. How could Vyvyan do this to him? How dare he have the nerve to switch himself off like that and not care? He had barely looked Rick's way for a week.

Eventually the others leave him alone in the kitchen to stew along with the tea - nothing but a mounting ashtray of stubs and his bitterness for company. It's horrible and boring and lonely and Rick wishes he could forget this awful feeling and do something to make it stop. Maybe this is why Vyvyan drinks so much. 

Smoking alone in the dark scares him. It's what he used to do before - before he and Vyvyan were a couple (if they could even call themselves that anymore.) Back then they would fight like cat and dog and Rick would retreat to his bedroom to lick (and bandage) his wounds. If it was a particularly nasty fight, which it usually was, then he'd sneak downstairs in the dead of night so no one could hear him cry.

 

~

 

"Oh. You're still up."

He hadn't heard the front door this time, or Vyvyan's usual racket as he stomps his way through it - often quite literally. Vyvyan pauses by the stairs and looks at him - one quick but dazzling blue-eyed look, taking him in and seeing right through him, the way he always does, and for a moment Rick thinks he looks horribly disappointed, or maybe even horribly disgusted; he can't tell. 

"Yes I'm still up."

"Have you been crying?"

"No!" Rick snaps a little too quickly: a lie. "I've just got smoke in my eye, that's all." He swallows, his throat tightening as Vyvyan shrugs, staggers towards the sofa and unfolds Mike's newspaper. It's so huge that it obstructs his face and most of his body when he sits down and opens the pages.

It takes immense effort to rid the saliva and venom from Rick's mouth when he watches Vyvyan so obviously ignoring him like this. 

Had he done something wrong - or said something bad? 

Had Vyvyan met someone else, or had he simply got bored and gone off him already just like Rick knew he would, just like that?! 

Rick wouldn't blame him if he had.

He deliberately, visibly raises all of the defensive walls Vyvyan had managed to smash through so easily, surrounding himself in a haze of cigarette smoke: legs crossed, teeth gritted, face hard and blank. Vyvyan doesn't say another word and Rick feels judged, unaccountably guilty, and ridiculously stupid for allowing himself to be pulled so deeply into this.

For a moment he just sits where he is, floundering after something to say. Should he confront Vyvyan? That would be the normal course of action, start with a terse: _'what time do you call this, young man?'_ But he already knows how futile that would prove. When Vyvyan goes ice cold like this, Rick is lucky if he even bothers to open his mouth. They don't hit each other anymore. It's far more likely that Vyvyan won't even reply and all that will do is send Rick into a spiral of despair - which won't help anything either. 

These past few weeks have been fine, good, amazing, a whirlwind, he thinks when he briefly looks back. All of that. Below the surface there's always been some kind of not-quite-right-ness that they manage to skirt around, and although he knows what it is now, he'd never stopped to think about it when assessing their relationship before.

He's in love with Vyvyan. Sooo in love. But he'd never dared act on it. And he should have. Despite his various late-night fantasies, the physical, final act of love and true intimacy had never taken place, and he realises that his mere soppy and romantic words were probably not much use without their actions, and could only hold Vyvyan's attention for so long. The missing piece of their relationship had never shown itself as clearly and horribly as right at this moment, though. He doesn't know what to do now. Is it too late to throw himself at Vyvyan and his mercy? Cliff knows, he wants to. Is this the end of them as they've come to know it? _Is_ it too late? Is this just what happens with two people after a point? You snog for a bit, touch each other under the covers with the lights off and then you move on to someone else?

Rick doesn't want that - he couldn't stand it. He doesn't want to move on, although Vyvyan has made it clear that he is in no way interested in speaking to him right now.

Five or six minutes of this wretched silence go by and then Rick makes himself move, feeling like his feet are rooted in the threadbare carpet. 

He refills the kettle. The only sounds as he waits for it to boil and gets a clean cup are the occasional rustles from Vyvyan straightening the pages of the newspaper he's reading, or at least pretending to read. Rick looks at him and even if he has little choice in the matter, he suddenly can't bear to hang around here and watch as Vyvyan resents him for leading him on and then goes right back to hating him again.

Right, then. 

Fine.

The kettle eventually boils. Rick waits a few more minutes that feel like an eternity for the tea to steep before adding the milk and sugar the way he knows Vyvyan likes it, stirring it painfully slowly. This will be the first, last and only time he'll make his boyfriend's tea.

He sets the cup on the coffee table and silently says his goodbyes before escaping upstairs to the relatively non-hostile sanctuary of his bedroom and packing up his things.

He'll move out first thing in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick thinks back to the day he got everything he wanted. They've both made some pretty silly mistakes along the way, but he realises he's the only one still making them. 
> 
> *Flashbacks. Fights. First kisses. Long chapter but I wanted them to have a heart to heart so the last part will be shorter.
> 
> No smut yet as such but I'm getting there. Hope you like :)

He couldn't say how it happened, or even why it happened. One minute he was there, sitting next to Vyvyan, taking turns to pick fights with him like any other morning, and the next they're arguing heatedly and he's doubled up in pain, with a rather sharp and solid elbow jammed between his ribs. 

This fight is no different: Rick is hesitant to lay a hand on Vyvyan, too tempted by something he doesn't dare admit, fractionally slower on the uptake and the first to be injured.

Really injured. Unfairly, terribly winded, and now the walls are closing in all around him, the air is thinning and it's difficult to breathe.

Typical! Just when he'd managed to schedule some much needed alone time with the telly, he's about to be murdered to death in his own ruddy sitting room by someone who, for the bloody life of him, he couldn't stop thinking about.

"Ha ha ha!" 

Rick hears through the haze.

"Get out of that one, girlie! This is the part where you beg for your life, then. Well? Go on. What's the matter, cat got your tongue?"

He'd always taken something as boring as breathing for granted. Now it's becoming a bit of a bugger and he'd better try and plead his case and describe the predicament he's in before Vyvyan's second thunderous body shot finds it's mark and before he loses conciousness right here on the sofa. 

Urgh, what a revolting thought, he shudders. Then he'd be completely defenceless, and then who knows what foul and depraved acts Vyvyan would do to him.

Blimey! That really shouldn't sound so appealing.

He really must be losing it.

He doesn't black out, and Vyvyan doesn't hit him again. Just leans to peer at his forehead and cheeks in turn. So close their noses bump together softly and Rick feels like he's drowning.

"Y'know, that's exactly the shade of blue Neil wants to paint our bathroom," says Vyvyan, his complexion clear and pale and dazzling thanks to Rick's ill-timed lack of oxygen. "What you calling that? Asphyxiation azure? Suffocation sapphire? Denim blue poof?"

"No that's you," he continues to provoke with his last living breath, adrenaline spiking, heart dangerously close to leaping out of his mouth. Vyvyan takes the bait and runs with it, leaning delightfully closer to yell in his face.

"Oh so you want some more, do you?" 

With that he's pinned hard to the sofa - Vyvyan's knees lodged in his sides and both wrists snapped harshly back, and this is it, he gulps; this is how Rick is going to die. If he doesn't perish from his injuries alone then his poor infatuated soul isn't going to survive Vyvyan straddling him in this lewd manner for much longer.

"Any last confessions on your death bed?"

"Yes I think I love you."

"What?"

"I said help me, you gargantuan imbecile! I can't breathe."

"Good."

"Please Vyv," he croaks, "you win. I - give - in,"

"Aw that's not fair!" Vyvyan slides up and off him, sulking like a five year old boy as he untangles their knotted fingers. "You know I hate that. Since when do you give in so easily? Bloody wimp."

His eyes must have closed then. He doesn't remember answering back, or much else after that until he's hoisted to his feet and wobbling, standing before Vyvyan all giddy and lightheaded for absolutely no reason at all.

"Oi, virgin, didn't you hear what I said? Oi! You alright?"

Rick is roughly shaken and a warm palm cups his cheek, another checking the temperature of his forehead as he panics and tries his hardest to stumble backwards and away, afraid of what he might do if this remarkable display of affection carries on.

"Not so fast. Your pulse is racing. Sit down." 

"Don't wanna -"

" _Sit down._ "

He does as instructed, reluctantly. Vyvyan continues to play doctor and check him over and that same hand on Rick's forehead somehow ends up in his hair, the other on his back, patting and rubbing and creating more warmth than Rick thought possible without his underpants suddenly combusting into flames.

"Breathe. That's it. Nice and slow." 

He tries it a few times: drawing breaths deeply in and slowly out, but it's no use. He has to put his head between his knees to conceal an inevitable stiffy when Vyvyan's hand rests on the nape of his neck and he's speaking in such soft tones. _Oh good lord,_ those hands are good, but all too soon, they stop. "What are you doing now?"

"Not giving you the kiss of life if that's what you think. Perv. I'm waiting for the colour to come back in your cheeks. It shouldn't be bright green though. Looks like you're gonna puke."

"Sounds like you want me to."

Vyvyan shrugs, both hands still on him. "It'll be a lot more entertaining than this boring television programme, I'll give you that." 

Is the television still on? Rick hadn't noticed. "Don't. Don't ruin the moment."

"What moment?"

"This moment." He looks up at Vyvyan, still gasping. Vyvyan - who's rubbing his back in slow circles, firmly between each shoulder blade and then right down to his... _oh God!_ "You know, you touch me rather a lot," he says, refusing to look away despite being scared out of his wits.

"I don't!"

"You do. You're always going out of your way to touch me lately. Kick me. Punch me. Fall on top of me. Even when you're drunk you never miss. You're, erm, you're even doing it now."

"Shut up, no I'm not." 

Rick is shoved away and Vyvyan's head is in the fridge before he can blink. He's unable to blink. He can't take his eyes off Vyvyan for that long. 

"Right. You're fine. Aren't you? Yeah? Beer.. Good idea. Need a beer. Want a beer?" Vyvyan stalls and glances over, red-faced and fumbling with four cans like can't get in them fast enough.

Is this happening?

No.

It can't be.

Rick can't actually be right for a change.

Can he?

"I think I'd better." He mumbles. Neither were in the habit of drinking in the morning, not even Vyvyan thanks to the state he's usually in with his hangovers, but Rick accepts the ice cold can thrust out to him on this occasion. He has to do _something_ to rid himself of this strange fluttering, nauseating feeling, and as long as they're glugging down cheap lager like civilisation was about to end and there was no tomorrow, there's less chance of looking each other in the eye, coz right now that's too nerve-wracking for words.

 _Is_ this happening? Or is it just a tad wishful thinking on his part? Maybe it's both, and whatever happens next - if anything - will have to be up to Vyvyan because Rick is suddenly terrified. Too terrified to even think about it. What if he'd made a mistake and misread the signs. What does he even know about the signs anyway. 

If this _is_ happening, he needs more evidence, and a bigger gesture than sly touches and mindless violence. He needs Vyvyan to do more: prove it. It all depends on Vyvyan and where he sits when he comes back. 

Rick makes a snap decision and decides to narrow the options by kicking and snapping a leg off the spindly looking chair in the corner. He'd never liked it anyway. Vyvyan looks at him for an explanation and he doesn't know what to say. They're looking at each other now, neither of them blinking, and the air in the room feels so charged that Rick has to clear his throat. "What? It was an ugly chair anyway,"

"Yeah. At least you put it out of its misery. Neil can sit there. Drink up, eh. It'll put hairs on your chest. Not that there's anything wrong with your chest the way it is, um, anyway."

This could be happening; Vyvyan is nervous too.

Vyvyan paces and drinks and paces, gets more beers and throws himself down on the sofa, squashed up next to Rick. Wow, this is definitely happening! Whatever _this_ is. "Is that a good thing?" His stammer and terror return tenfold. "Do girls like hairy chests?"

"Dunno," says Vyvyan, suddenly beet-red and fiddling with the ring pull of his can, and Rick wants to confess everything and run away at the same time. "So.. I'm calling that one all, yeah?"

Vyvyan must mean the tin opener that got picked up and launched at his head earlier, Rick thinks. That had been a great shot, an easy shot, and Vyvyan - the bastard - certainly hadn't seen that one coming. Rick smiles to himself as he drinks. As satisfying as the scab above Vyvyan's eye was, (proof that he'd managed to retaliate a little) being allowed this close to him to be able to see it is better. 

"M'sorry about your eyebrow. You're scarred for life and disfigured."

"It's nothing. It'll heal. I'm sorry I cracked your rib."

They both giggle at this and Rick knows an opening for a truce when he sees one. "It's fine. I'm fine. Friends?"

"Maybe. Just for today."

 

~

 

He watches Vyvyan as Vyvyan watches the television, always in careful sideways glances when he thinks he won't be seen. Everything appears calm on the surface. Vyvyan's body is relaxed and he's slightly smiling to himself, and Rick wonders if either of them can actually prevent this from happening if they try. It's just never that black and white and simple. Knowing what you want isn't as easy as having it. They're okay for the moment, but they do fight all the time. 

There's a film just started that they've both seen before and they drink and talk in clipped sentences before lapsing into a silence so companionable and warm, Rick feels somehow more aware of it than he is of the plot.

When the credits roll and Vyvyan goes on to critique the film as 'a load of bloody boring shite,' Rick notices their upper arms are touching, and that Vyvyan hasn't moved away. He should have moved away ages ago, but he never did. 

Vyvyan picks up the remote to mute the sound like he's about to say something (instead of just needlessly throwing it through the screen) and still neither of them move. It's as if they're both waiting for it, Rick thinks, for something to happen, or someone to interrupt them like their housemates often do. Nobody does.

"What were we arguing about, anyway?" Vyvyan leans back and rubs his forehead stars like he does when he's out of his depth.

"I asked if you thought that new weather girl was attractive. I said she was and then you attacked me."

"I didn't! I simply said that I thought you were lying. Still do. In fact I think you're a great big liar stuck in a river in Egypt."

"What?"

"Denial." Sneers Vyvyan - grin so smug like the irritating git that he is. "I think we both know who you'd rather get your leg over with, and it ain't her, is it. How much longer you gonna deny it, huh?"

"I'm not denying anything!" He manages to cover for himself quite well after the initial shock wears off. "I think she's very pretty. If you like that sort of soft, girly, pretty kind of look."

"Oh I do. Very much." 

A fresh judder of nerves hit his stomach as Vyvyan leans on him again and pins him down, with much less force but still enough to prove his point: Rick can't move. "Okay, I admit, maybe I exaggerated a little bit. A-are you planning on getting off me anytime soon?"

"Getting off with you?"

"Getting _off_ me." He states, his throat tense along with the rest of him. "Off - OF - me."

"Think I'd prefer it my way."

"This is no time for your games, Vyvyan!"

"Not playing games. You are."

"You are! Stop messing around."

"Does this look like I'm messing around?" Vyvyan leans his full weight on him, his thighs tightening their hold around his in a wonderfully possessive squeeze. "Well? Go on. I'm allll ears."

"What a stupid thing to say," Rick mumbles, deflecting the issue of having Vyvyan this close and being utterly powerless to stop him. Not that he'd ever. "What a ridiculous expression. How can somebody be _all_ ears? There's loads of other body parts. Such as teeth and eyes and, erm, lips." _Shiiiit. Stop looking at his lips, stop looking at his lips!_ "Um, why would somebody want to be all ears?"

"Are you ever going to shut up?"

He's vibrating with anticipation when Vyvyan finally leans in to kiss him. He turns his head to the right, avoiding the nose ring like he'd imagined doing a million times, then his eyes drift closed and their mouths open in what is instantly the gentlest, softest, most intimate-feeling kiss he'd ever experienced (if practicing on his pillow counted.) His lips tighten instinctively against Vyvyan's and he puts a hand on his cheek, avoiding his injured eye and sealing their mouths together harder. Vyvyan moans something that gets lost in his throat, and Rick feels more for him already than he'd ever felt for anyone. A dizzying vortex of unspoken, never acted-upon feelings rising and swirling around their heads. He lifts his off the cushion and the kiss deepens on its own, hot blasts of breath rushing from one pair of starving lips to another. Rick knows then in that instant he'd always loved Vyvyan, and that was before he knew he was even capable of this.

Every bit of the kiss is amazing, the tongue touching his skillful and completely commanding.

"You should give yourself a night off and come out with me sometime," says Vyvyan when he pulls back, eyes so dilated they're almost all pupil. He's noticeably aroused and that thought hits Rick between the legs like a bullet. "Come to the pub with me tonight. Watch a band. Have a drink."

"Why?"

"Coz that's what people do, stupid. When they like each other. When they want to get off with each other. They go out."

"You want to date me?" Rick snorts in disbelief.

"Yeah," Vyvyan laughs too. "I want to _date_ you. I want to _date_ you so hard that you'll never let anyone else ever _date_ you again. Got it?"

"I think so."

"Good. Glad we sorted that out. Now come here."

Vyvyan tugs on his shirt, the hand not tearing material making itself busy trying to undo his trousers. "Whoa.. wait.. stop. Slow down." He grabs Vyvyan's wandering hands and they end up just awkwardly holding each others wrists. He can't do this here! He hadn't got his best pants on. Or a clean vest. And anyone could come down and catch them. Or look through the window at them. Or just waltz right in through the front door. It wasn't decent!

Rick doesn't want to be paranoid about these things when he should be enjoying himself, but it's too easy to see problems where there aren't any, especially if you squint hard enough.

"Okay. Slow. I can do slow."

It doesn't take a lot of squinting to see something has changed within Vyvyan.

It's there in his eyes when they kiss.

There in the flicker of shock across his face when Rick swipes his tongue across his lower lip. It's not just pleasure, it's new pleasure. Vyvyan had probably never had a really good snog before either. 

This is all moving so fast, and part of Rick is panicking, unable to believe it's real. Part of him wants to leap up and punch the air, and the biggest part of him isn't surprised in the slightest. There's no way on earth that either could have stopped this. It was always just a matter of time. 

"So you coming out with me tonight then or what? Not gonna ask you twice."

"You just did."

"Piss off, smarty pants. Yes or no?"

"Yes!" Rick blurts out. "Of course, yes. I thought you'd never ask."

 

~

 

The beer Vyvyan buys him that night is disgusting. 

The pub is crowded.

The band are too loud.

Vyvyan holds his hand during their final song.

And Rick has the time of his life.

 

~

 

He tips out drawer after drawer, stuffing the contents angrily into a bin bag. The ticket stub from that amazing night and the torn up parking fine Vyvyan had received afterwards coz they couldn't stop snogging in the alley behind the pub go straight in the bin with his college books. He doesn't need them anymore; college had ended, his exams had gone terribly, and so had everything else. Two and a half years of his life packed away, and this meaningless mess was all he had left to show for it.

Except..

Oh damn it, it's not here.

Rick rummages in the bag, emptying it in chaos on the floor. _The_ shirt. His favourite, extremely filthy and worn to threads shirt, is nowhere to be found.

He couldn't leave home without that. He wanted at least some memory of his time here with Vyvyan, however small and insignificant it was.

Damn damn and bloody dammit! Why does Vyvyan have to wash his things?!

It's the middle of the night and the house is in darkness, so he's probably safe to go on the hunt for the shirt - and the jeans he's just noticed are missing, (and blimey, his left red boot!) without any of his so-called friends waking, questioning him or trying to stop him from going. Coz he'd made up his mind.

Leaving Vyvyan is for the best. 

It's easier this way: having Vyvyan angry with him and him being ignored. He'd already put his heart on the line only to have it ripped out and tossed away like yesterday's supper. At least he wouldn't have to add the absolute humiliation of having Vyvyan publicly dump him to his ever growing list of woes.

Every door in this house creaks like it's complaining - especially Vyvyan's bedroom door. He tries to open it quietly, gritting his teeth at the haunting screech it makes. Rick wishes this house really was haunted. Entering Vyvyan's lair ought to come with a warning from a ghost rattling his chains. Then maybe he would have had second thoughts about starting this thing with him in the first place if greeted with a hexed skull and crossbones at the door. 

He turns the room upside down. There's still no sign of his shirt and now he's furious.

Vyvyan had probably thrown it away like he had with their relationship - if he ever wanted one at all. He probably only asked Rick out so he could practice his snogging on him before meeting a girl.

It should be a relief that he's returning to the safety of his parents house. Home comforts. Hot meals and clean running water, but then why does it feel like his insides are being grated into shreds, the air a thousand tonnes against his chest, suffocating him again, pushing tears from his eyes. 

Rick has to confront Vyvyan once and for all. Get his property back. Slice old wounds wide open before they can heal.

He's asleep on the sofa and snoring under his paper so Rick wakes him and stands there, watching as he grumbles.

"Bloody hell, my head's killing me. What time is it?"

"Late." He snaps, hands on hips, blinking back pitiful tears.

"Uh I was having this awful nightmare about you. You kept bringing me all these horrible cups of tea, and.. Oh,"

They both acknowledge the cup on the table, steaming hot and untouched. Brilliant! Now Rick can't even make the tea correctly! "Have you seen my grey shirt?" He asks. "I need it before I go."

"No I haven't. Why, where are we going?"

" _We're_ not going. _I'm_ going. For good. I'm moving out."

"Well sod off then. And do it quietly, my head's banging."

"Don't you even care at all?" Rick breaks, choking back a sob. "You show up hours late - don't have the decency to call. Where have you been? What time do you call this? Why didn't you call me? Who have you been with? Coz I know you haven't been with Mike, Vyvyan. I knew you'd get bored of me eventually. I bloody knew it!"

"Aw baby, I love you too."

"You - what? You can't just say that. That's not fair!"

"Yes I can. You say it to me all the time. I'm late coz I had to wait til last orders for my mother to pay attention to me and not the fifty or so blokes she was entertaining. I asked if she could get me a few shifts at the pub now that college is over and I've probably failed all my exams. I had the last one today if you're bothered. One bloody-bastard-million multiple choice questions on medical sciences and the human body. My head's up my arse and I'm knackered. So why don't you put your sad bin bag down, take that chip off your shoulder, stop with the third degree and make me better! S'what boyfriends are meant to do, innit?"

"You haven't - you're not - you haven't gone off me?" Rick feels a piercing stab of guilt in his chest and hates it. He despises how deeply he's fallen into this - how helpless and soppy and emotional Vyvyan has the nerve to make him feel, and he gulps it back.

"Yeah, coz two years of itching to get my hands and anything else I can manage on you and I've gone off you in thirty-five days? Don't be a prick."

"You count the days?" He wants to know as Vyvyan reaches across the table for the tea and drinks it.

"Sometimes. When I can't sleep. If you think I'd throw this away just like that, then you _are_ an idiot. If you think I'd ever give this up without a fight then you really don't know me at all."

"Why have you been avoiding me then?

"Because you told me to. You told me to leave you alone."

"Not for bloody-ever, Vyvyan! And since when do you do as I tell you? You could have called."

"Yeah I could have. But I'm not in a sexual relationship with our telephone, Rick, and I couldn't listen to you get yourself off again without me. It was almost as if…"

"Go on,"

"As if you didn't need _me_ at all."

"Don't be stupid. Of course I do! Look at me, I'm a mess. I don't make sense without you." He shouts back. "Now who's being a prick!" Vyvyan suddenly glares and yanks him in by the arms, and Rick thinks he's in for a beating, until Vyvyan kisses him and silences those thoughts. "Wait."

"What?"

"Nothing, you.. took my breath away, that's all. Okay, I'm ready. Kiss me again." Vyvyan pulls him on top into a desperate, bruising kiss that makes him feel feverish, hot and even more sorry and frustrated all at once. It's clear what Vyvyan wants and as usual Rick had been too wrapped up in himself to notice. The hands that come to rest on his back seem to own every piece of him already. Vyvyan is silently smashing through his barriers like a charging bull, not caring one bit if he demolishes them, and it's wonderful and marvellous and absolutely terrifying. "Wait!"

"What now!? You're a bloody nightmare, you know." Vyvyan yells at him." _Clean up after yourself, but don't wash my stuff. Leave me alone, but come home. Touch me, don't touch me. Snog me, don't snog me!_ Which is it to be, Rick? I'm sick of bending over backwards for you. I can't do everything you want all the time."

He thinks about his behaviour for a moment and sits up, pulling Vyvyan's heavy and uncooperative arms around him. "You were just doing what I wanted all along?"

"That's all I ever do."

"You don't have to do that, and I never - nor will I EVER - tell you to not touch me." As Vyvyan kisses him again without a flicker of shame, his hands slip down the back of Rick's pyjamas and grab hungrily at his bottom.

"That's good then. You want this, right?"

"You know I do."

"And we're having a good time, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"Then will you stop worrying."

He nods - the heavy burden of rage, sadness and fear evaporating until his heart is full again and he's even more certain. "Let's go upstairs."

"Thought you were leaving me, you girl."

"I'm not going anywhere, Vyv." He says, kissing Vyvyan again and unfastening his belt. "Except for your bed."


End file.
